Ulster Rugby 2017-2018 Part 2

Part 2

Why come on an Ulster thread and post something inflammatory like that. If you don't like Ulster don't watch them and don't comment on them in a place you are hoping to get a reaction. Focus on whatever your own team is and their success instead of being bitter. It gets you no where in life holding on to resentment and tells people more about you than what you are commenting on.

carpet baboon wrote:Big difference today. We made line breaks but didn't finish them. They did. Ruthlessly.
We slipped off a couple too many tackles, but at times our rush defence stopping them behind the line and looked solid.
But our bench made little to no impact.
Treadwell looked good, as did wee lad at 15, Addison played well but was guilty of trying to do to much at times.
And in the first half I felt we just didn't get the bounce of the ball.

Not as hard as the score looks in my eyes

While the scoreline wasn't the best the squad/team do seem to be getting better. Fight for 3rd/4th in the Conference could be a real fight. Feeling Ulster will finish the season stronger.

carpet baboon wrote:Big difference today. We made line breaks but didn't finish them. They did. Ruthlessly.
We slipped off a couple too many tackles, but at times our rush defence stopping them behind the line and looked solid.
But our bench made little to no impact.
Treadwell looked good, as did wee lad at 15, Addison played well but was guilty of trying to do to much at times.
And in the first half I felt we just didn't get the bounce of the ball.

Not as hard as the score looks in my eyes

Think it's a little harsh to say they made little to no impact, don't think any of them played poorly just don't think they changed the game. Kernogan carried well enough, the two props didn't do too badly, Reidy did ok and I think McPhillips was a solid replacement and I liked how he played with his head up he was always assessing his options and was constantly looking in behind to kick if he could

It's another game though where our attack looked better with Shanahan at 9 rather than Cooney. Our set piece needs serious work, though the lineout looked a bit crisper with McBurney at hooker but too many times we looked to set up for the next phase before securing the ball.

marty2086 wrote:

carpet baboon wrote:Big difference today. We made line breaks but didn't finish them. They did. Ruthlessly.
We slipped off a couple too many tackles, but at times our rush defence stopping them behind the line and looked solid.
But our bench made little to no impact.
Treadwell looked good, as did wee lad at 15, Addison played well but was guilty of trying to do to much at times.
And in the first half I felt we just didn't get the bounce of the ball.

Not as hard as the score looks in my eyes

Think it's a little harsh to say they made little to no impact, don't think any of them played poorly just don't think they changed the game. Kernogan carried well enough, the two props didn't do too badly, Reidy did ok and I think McPhillips was a solid replacement and I liked how he played with his head up he was always assessing his options and was constantly looking in behind to kick if he could

It's another game though where our attack looked better with Shanahan at 9 rather than Cooney. Our set piece needs serious work, though the lineout looked a bit crisper with McBurney at hooker but too many times we looked to set up for the next phase before securing the ball.

Fair point I meant comparatively to racings our bench had less impact than there's.
But I do agree shanahan has been fantastic so far this season. Fast accurate passing, good support lines. I think peel is having a big effect on him

Anyone else feel Coetzee is looking a bit jaded? Backrow wasn't great today, Murphy and Timoney weren't brilliant either.

neilthom7 wrote:Why come on an Ulster thread and post something inflammatory like that.  If you don't like Ulster don't watch them and don't comment on them in a place you are hoping to get a reaction.  Focus on whatever your own team is and their success instead of being bitter.  It gets you no where in life holding on to resentment and tells people more about you than what you are commenting on.

Cyril is a sad lonely fella who can only feel validated if he gets a response from people.
If you ignore him he will soon crawl back into his hole and cry about his limp co*k and inability to make bonds with real human people.

Artful_Dodger wrote:Anyone else feel Coetzee is looking a bit jaded?  Backrow wasn't great today, Murphy and Timoney weren't brilliant either.

Timoney was showing a lot of effort but was very inaccurate. I think they were trying to do to much and ended up not doing what they do best. if that makes sense

Artful_Dodger wrote:Anyone else feel Coetzee is looking a bit jaded?  Backrow wasn't great today, Murphy and Timoney weren't brilliant either.

Don't know if he's jaded but he was at fault for one of the tries, he has a habit of leaving too much space in the defensive line and it's been exploited a few times this season

Got caught out once again by the fixture being listed as local time in France so missed the first half.

Felt that we lost possession far too easily albeit when we were chasing the game. We were trying offloads when it wasn’t on, sometimes not giving the call when we should, players getting isolated/poor support...
and a few dumb penalties (Marcel!!)

But... Ulster did show signs of the back line making improvements in attack. Just need to make sure the support is there and we make better decisions after breaks are made.

Not a pleasant result, but encouraging signs if we can take that back to the Pro14.

Cyril wrote:Yep just like Ulster rugby. Classy morals through and through. Just the type of club you want for your kids

More oxymoronic moral immorality!

If you're just like Ulster Rugby, presumably you aren't the sort of person you'd want for your kids?

Keep the nuggets coming Cyril.

Ulster showed some decent moves in the backs, but it's the set up phases that aren't creating the opportunities. Not enough opponents are drawn into the early phases to create the holes for the later ones, resulting in turnovers through counter rucks.

Cyril wrote:Yep just like Ulster rugby. Classy morals through and through. Just the type of club you want for your kids

Cyril thinks that it's immoral to have sex with girls. I'm not sure if Cyril dislikes girls or is unable to gain their attention but he definately regards having sex an immoral act. Cyril fills his time trolling on the internet to get his kicks.

Pete330v2 wrote:

Cyril wrote:Yep just like Ulster rugby. Classy morals through and through. Just the type of club you want for your kids

Cyril thinks that it's immoral to have sex with girls. I'm not sure if Cyril dislikes girls or is unable to gain their attention but he definately regards having sex an immoral act. Cyril fills his time trolling on the internet to get his kicks.

Careful. 'Sexually and legally mature young women' might be better

Don't want starting another semantic hornet's nest.

Is this true
Currently in both the Republic and Northern Ireland there are 246 Schools playing rugby; Ulster (107), Leinster (75), Munster (41) and Connacht (23).

Does that make our School player pool larger than Leinsters finely oiled production line?

Yep. Larger. It's maths.

Kingshu wrote:Is this true
Currently in both the Republic and Northern Ireland there are 246 Schools playing rugby; Ulster (107), Leinster (75), Munster (41) and Connacht (23).

Does that make our School player pool larger than Leinsters finely oiled production line?

Where do those numbers come from?

The ever reliable wiki
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_national_schoolboy_rugby_union_team

SecretFly wrote:Yep.  Larger.  It's maths.

How so? If Leinsters schools have two to three teams per school and Ulster have one then Leinster would have more surely?

I'd dispute the numbers anyway

There are only 200 secondary and grammar schools in Northern Ireland combined, if I recall from the MA I did a few years back. Did my dissertation on educational underachievement specific to impoverished working class communities. So I'm calling massive bu!lshit that over half of all schools in Northern Ireland have a rugby team.

Just checked the cited sources in the wiki article, they are the below three links:

An article from the Irish Independent on body building risks:
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/rugby-chiefs-muscle-in-on-body-building-risk-to-pupils-26343630.html

The home page of a dodgey looking website called irishrugby.net
http://www.irishrugby.net/

A link to the IrishRugby.co.uk website showing Ireland's results against England over a 10 year period
http://www.irishrugby.co.uk/

Looks like somebody has pulled this out of their arse and is also why university lecturers will shoot you for using wikipedia as a source.

Artful_Dodger wrote:
Looks like somebody has pulled this out of their arse and is also why university lecturers will shoot you for using wikipedia as a source.

That what the rise in punishment shootings are? University lecturers shooting people over citing Wikipedia?

marty2086 wrote:

Artful_Dodger wrote:
Looks like somebody has pulled this out of their arse and is also why university lecturers will shoot you for using wikipedia as a source.

That what the rise in punishment shootings are? University lecturers shooting people over citing Wikipedia?

Nah, Avon sellers are responsible for that from what I hear

Unfortunately the interweb is, as you all know, filled with as much misinformation as accurate information. You'd be as accurate plucking thoughts and ideas from the ether sometimes as it seems Wiki did in this case. There is no way that Ulster has 107 rugby playing schools. In the Armagh City area, of the 6 secondary schools only one offers rugby. I don't know what the rest of the province is like in that respect but if this is indicative of numbers then rugby playing schools are like unicorn faeces.

carpet baboon wrote:Big difference today. We made line breaks but didn't finish them. They did. Ruthlessly.
We slipped off a couple too many tackles, but at times our rush defence stopping them behind the line and looked solid.
But our bench made little to no impact.
Treadwell looked good, as did wee lad at 15, Addison played well but was guilty of trying to do to much at times.
And in the first half I felt we just didn't get the bounce of the ball.

Not as hard as the score looks in my eyes

Agree with a lot of that, I thought there were a lot of positives, particularly how many opportunities we created.

Burns looked a lot sharper to, Addison was really classy in the center and Stockdale is back to scoring for fun. In the pack Henderson and Treadwell fronted up. I thought the backrow did well enough considering we were down to 14 men for a period.

On the negative side we didn't convert enough chances and lacked a bit of discipline at times. The scrum did OK when Moore was on but the line out struggled badly.

All in if the young guys learn from it this will stand us in good stead in future.

I was really pleased with the performance in particular how we were able to carve open the Racing defence, an act we've seen very little of from the Ulster attack play. Some of the negatives can be fixed in time, the accuracy at the pace McFarland wants them playing at will come and the lineout can be tuned to run a lot better. Even the scrum can be fine tuned but does depend on a decent tight five being fit and available, we could be doing with at the very least passable loosehead and lock medical jokers for a period of time but I'd not hold my breath for that any time soon, we're not Munster after all. Still, all in all there's more positives to be found in Ulster Rugby than some may have us believe. We're not going to be looking at any silverware but progress would be more than acceptable.

A former Irish international linked to the top post at Ulster Rugby has stepped down from his current role as chief executive of wind energy firm Simple Power after its sale, Business Telegraph understands.

Philip Rainey, who has headed the Heron Bros-owned company for over six years, is understood to be on the way out of Simple Power following its acquisition by London-based investment fund Foresight.

The value of the deal, which includes 52 stand-alone wind turbines, has not been disclosed.

Set up in 2010 by the Draperstown construction family the Herons, Simple Power holds the largest portfolio of single wind turbines in Northern Ireland.

It's understood Mr Rainey will be the sole departure from the small management team.

marty2086 wrote:A former Irish international linked to the top post at Ulster Rugby has stepped down from his current role as chief executive of wind energy firm Simple Power after its sale, Business Telegraph understands.

Philip Rainey, who has headed the Heron Bros-owned company for over six years, is understood to be on the way out of Simple Power following its acquisition by London-based investment fund Foresight.

The value of the deal, which includes 52 stand-alone wind turbines, has not been disclosed.

Set up in 2010 by the Draperstown construction family the Herons, Simple Power holds the largest portfolio of single wind turbines in Northern Ireland.

It's understood Mr Rainey will be the sole departure from the small management team.

Perhaps the breath of fresh air we need after all the hot air we've been subjected to

Pete330v2 wrote:

Perhaps the breath of fresh air we need after all the hot air we've been subjected to

Very good

Jean Deysel retires with immediate effect.

Can we now have a medical joker Mr Nucifora?

Don't think we're likely to see a medical joker, with Rea Jr, Hall, Dunleavy plus Dalton in the academy think they will be promoted especially with the Celtic Cup over the plan was always for these players to step into the squad

Sorry to see Deysel retire, was worried about him coming in because of some of his actions in SA before but he did ok for us just not as well as he could have

If they’re smart they’d get a lock in as a joker.

Ultimately though the IRFU will quite rightly say you have these players but you don’t play them, as Marty points out. And it’s true, we can’t argue against it. Max Deegan has 25 Leinster caps in a back row which is as competitive as anything you’ll see in world rugby. He was in the team that beat the All Blacks along with McPhillips. And while we’ve had a injury/legal nightmare at 10 McPhillips has picked up less than half the caps of Deegan. Leinster find game time to play these kids. We do not.

Anyway, back to Deysel. Sorry to hear for him personally. Did he do his ACL at the end of last season or something? I’m guessing the recovery hasn’t gone as planned and he needs another op with a new ETA of 35 ish. Probably a good time for him to hang up the boots. Wish him well.

Apparently he was retiring at the end of this season anyway and heading home so any op that keeps him out for a number of months would probably be the end

As for lock Redman it's probably the same there as it is with backrow with Regan, Dalton, Thompson, Luney and Montgomery all capable of covering it. Most of those guys have picked up injuries at one point or another already this season so probably why they haven't featured so far.

Be interesting to see which Irish internationals feature this weekend, Best, Murphy and Stockdale might need the minutes before Ireland then again Rory might be wrapped in cotton wool given his situation though he needs to work on his lineout

Id be annoyed if we didnt get a medical joker, but not surprised as we didn't get one for Coatzee.

Backrow is an area of strenght for Ireland, Schmidt has a nightmare picking who he has to leave out, so its not really a position the IRFU should be making provinces play younger players.
Scumhalf on the other hand has been an area of weakness for the IRFU (hence Pienaar being forced away), it should be the position that the IRFU force provinces to give younger players gametime in.

If they are allowing Munster medial jokers in areas we are weak and not allowing Ulster them in areas that are strong, I would be very annoyed.

Pity for Deysel, he looked to have found a bit of form this season.

Scott Fardy would be a handy replacement.

marty2086 wrote:Apparently he was retiring at the end of this season anyway and heading home so any op that keeps him out for a number of months would probably be the end

As for lock Redman it's probably the same there as it is with backrow with Regan, Dalton, Thompson, Luney and Montgomery all capable of covering it. Most of those guys have picked up injuries at one point or another already this season so probably why they haven't featured so far.

Be interesting to see which Irish internationals feature this weekend, Best, Murphy and Stockdale might need the minutes before Ireland then again Rory might be wrapped in cotton wool given his situation though he needs to work on his lineout

Slightly different in terms of the 2nd row though Marty.

Dalton was U20s, but the rest are a very mixed bag in terms of pedigree and age. Isn't Montgomery like 25? Great if they make it but far from assured. Azur, Hall, Agnew, Rea Jnr, Dunleavy are all highly rated.

Team for tomorrow night

Debut for Robert Baloucoune, he's another winger with real pace, no Cooney or Burns so looks like we might get a glimpse of Lowry at 10 at some point

Ulster Rugby team to play Dragons, Guinness PRO14 Round 7, Friday 26th October, Kingspan Stadium, 7.55pm:
(15-9): M Lowry; R Baloucoune, W Addison, S McCloskey, H Speight; J McPhillips, D Shanahan;
(1-8): E O’Sullivan, R Best (captain), M Moore, I Henderson, K Treadwell, S Reidy, J Murphy, M Coetzee;
Replacements (16-23): R Herring, A Warwick, T O’Toole, A O’Connor, G Jones, J Stewart, A Kernohan, C Gilroy.

Wow, different times at Ulster Rugby these days!

And isn't rugby a funny one.

Beginning of season, we were worried about back 3. Hoped Addison would be good, and he is. Were crying out for Speight and very glad to get him.

Expected to be relying heavily on Stockdale and Gilroy.

But felt we would be having to play Lyttle and Nelson.

Hoping we could survive till Ludik returned.


Don't think anyone imagined we would see Lowry get three competitive starts in a row at 15 or Baloucoune given a start ahead of Gilroy!
Yea Gilroy likely needs a rest, but Ulster in the past would have flogged players rather than risk youngsters.

Are Lyttle and Nelson both injured by the way??

Lyttle has been sent njured but on his way back. Not sure about Nelson

Lets hope young Baloucoune has as good a time as he's had with the A's, he's definitely a speedster from any of the clips I've seen but has he any other impressive aspects to his game? Anyone been to the game?
It's great that guys like him will be offered the chance where in the recent passed they'd have waited in the wings until they sodded off elsewhere. Fingers crossed for him.
Strong side, fingers crossed for them all

From what I saw of him Pete he can break a tackle similar to Kernohan and Stockdale, seems to have some decent strength for his body shape too

Still Sexton to come into the fold as well on the wing

Cheers Marty, sounds like someone to get excited about. If they're good enough they're old enough

Also:

Dragons (v Ulster Rugby):
Jordan Williams, Daf Howells, Adam Warren, Jarryd Sage, Will Talbot-Davies, Jason Tovey, Rhodri Williams; Brok Harris, Richard Hibbard (c), Lloyd Fairbrother, Matthew Screech, Lewis Evans, Huw Taylor, Nic Cudd, Harrison Keddie.
Replacements:
Rhys Lawrence, Aaron Jarvis, Ryan Bevington, Joe Davies, Taine Basham, Tavis Knoyle, Jack Dixon, Zane Kirchner

Read more at https://www.pro14rugby.org/2018/10/25/fly-half-tovey-to-start-at-ulster/#QYoqk21SWHIeDAWt.99

Hopefully we'll see a load of the youngsters get a game against Uruguay, be good to see how they have progressed since preseason

That's a decent Dragons team, is it 32 away games I a row they've lost?

I’d say that will seal it. Addison to start for Ireland??

Shanahan has been fantastic so far this year. I think peel needs to take a fair bit of credit

Addison is a class act. Forget all the really great moments he's had in this half. He was the first man there to congratulate Lowry and in his excitement was going to lift him up and carry him, but you could see in he quickly realised in his face he didn't want to treat Lowry as a kid. He just stopped himself and bear-hugged him. Real awareness both in rugby and as a person. Classy.

Ulster's set piece is abysmal.

This is a cracking game. Both sides giving it welly.

Treadwell has had a good 3 weeks or so. He's still only 22 and has 52 appearances. That's Gilroy levels of caps to age.

Terrible shame for Lowry. Was loving his moves. Did more in this match than Piutau did all last season.